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"The spirit of genuine patriotic
devotion and self-sacrifice shown by
the Russian people during those
years has few parallels in human
history." (Introduction to
Russia at
War,
by Alexander We rth .)
" We Want Peace"
Life has never been easy in Rus–
sia, even under conditions of peace.
And the absence of peace only
makes things terrifyingly worsc.
Perhaps this is why the Russian
people, almost to a man, tell visiting
Americans virtually the same s tory:
' 'We want peace. We don't want
war. We hope you want peace too.
We must never have war between
our two peoples."
Of course, they truly believe their
government would never be so fool–
ish as to precipitate a nuclear "ex–
change" (as the war theoreticians so
coldly phrase it)- but they're not so
sure of " imperialist" intentions.
Since my trip, I have thought
again and again on the truly unfor–
tunate state of affairs Americans
and Soviets find themselves locked
into today - a situation replete with
danger and continually fed by mu–
tual mistrust and suspicion.
In the most recent summit confer–
ence, neither side was able to con–
vince the other of its own peaceful
intentions. Even more importan!,
neither side, as Dr. Kissinger plainly
asserted, has yet been able to con–
vince its own military establi.shment
of the need for weapons restraint.
lf an agreement to limit otfensive
weapons is not reached by 1977,
said the American secretary of state,
"We will see an explosion of tech–
nology and numbers which will be
impossible to describe ...."
Are We in a False
Peace?
The vivid reminders of two great
world wars are all around us ye t
today.
1
personally have walked
though sorne of the World War
1
trenches near Ypres, Belgium and
have seen the nearby cemeteries
containing the bones of those, who
in the flower of their youth, died
8
in such fruitless, stalemated war–
fare.
Along with many other Ameri–
cans I have stood on the monument
which stretches across the sunken
hulk of the
U.S.S. Arizona
in Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii, which yet today
imprisons a crew of 1,100 victims in
a perpetua! watery grave.
One is forced to think: What if
the world's leaders are not success–
ful in instilling upon the minds of
their populations, especially the
young, the horrors of war? Certainly
one would think they have a better
chance to do so today. The last glo–
bal conflict was mankind's worst to
date, with "monuments" such as
Piskarevsky and Dachau constantly
with us to do the reminding. These
are not mere s tatues in public
squares immortalizing single heroes
and martyrs of history. They are tes–
timonies to genocide.
The fact is, a future world war
would this time not involve a series
of long sieges of cities or massive
land and sea battles. lnstead man–
kind would experience the inde–
scribable horror of weapons so
awesome they can wipe out whole
cities and regions with one blast.
Can today's leaders and the leaders
who must emerge from their midst
comprehend the enormity of the de–
structive power that is now within
their grasp? Will they fear to use
such weapons in light of the horrors
that their fathers and grandfathers
have so recently experienced?
This is the depth of the dilemma
that faces not onJy the leaders of the
Soviet Union (who understandably
want their nation to be strong so
that Leningrads and Kievs will
never happen again) but also those
of the United States, China, Japan,
India, the states of Western Europe
- in fact, all the nations on our
technologically shrunken globe.
Are we only passing through a
" peaceful" transition period, a lull
before the storm, as it were, between
a war that was the worst in history
and a war that could be the last - if
there were no God in heaven to pre–
vent such a fateful outcome?
Swords lnto Plowshares
In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev,
we visited the "Park of Eterna!
Glory to the Soldiers of the Great
Patriotic War." In the center of the
park is an obelisk dedicated to
Kiev's unknown soldier - a monu–
ment very similar in style to the
Washington Monument.
The obelisk is impressive - espe–
cially when seen on Victory Day
with hundreds of thousands from
Kiev and the surrounding environs
pouring through the park. Never–
theless, another monument in the
park was more memorable. l t was a
statue erected to the honor of Gen–
eral Vatutin, who led the Soviet
forces in their recapture of Kiev in
1943. Lyudmila, our Ukrainian In–
tourist guide. pointed out that the
sculptor of the statue, Evgeniv
Vuchetich, was the same artist who
produced the famous "swords into
plowshares" statue in front of the
United Nation's General Assembly
building in New York.
f
thought it
was really rather remarkable that
the work depicting a wonderful
prophecy out of a book of the He–
brew Bible had been commissioned
to an artist répresenting an officia lly
atheist society.
Nevertheless the time is coming
when those oft-repeated but sel–
dom-believed words quoted from
Isaiah 2:4 will surely come to pass.
Nations indeed "shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks: nation
shall not lift up sword against na–
tion, neither shall they learn war
any more."
Nations must learn that peace is
the product not ofwar and the prepa–
ration for it, but oflove and outgoing
concern for others. Peace will come
when nations, as well as the individ–
uals within them, in humility count
others better than themselves ( Phil–
ippians 2:3).
Only then will children, not only in
the Soviet Union, but also in all
nations around the world, be able to
ask, in childlike innocence, "War,
what 's that?"
o
PLAIN TRUTH October·November 1974